NY Times article:<\/p>\n
Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops<\/a><\/p>\n Monsanto’s Response:<\/p>\n We were disappointed to read this weekend\u2019s piece on GMO crops\u00a0in the New York Times (\u201cDoubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops<\/a>\u201d).\u00a0 The reporter chose to cherry-pick data to argue that GMOs have failed to provide significant benefits, especially yield increases, to farmers in the United States.\u00a0 The reporter\u2019s arguments were misinformed\u2013 and overlooked the perspectives of millions of farmers in the United States, India, South America and elsewhere in the world, who have chosen to plant GMOs over the past two decades.<\/em><\/p>\n We were especially disappointed because we engaged with this reporter on multiple occasions over several months to provide interviews, background information and recommendations of third-party experts and resources. \u00a0Much of this context was omitted from the article.\u00a0 As a resultlt, the article may create unfortunate confusion and concern among consumers who are unfamiliar with modern agricultural practices.<\/em><\/p>\n As we told the reporter on multiple occasions, analyzing yield trends across geographies is complex because agronomic characteristics, maturity rates and other factors have to be taken into consideration.\u00a0 Making comparisons across very broad geographies \u2013 such as the United States and Europe \u2013 is especially difficult.\u00a0 Focusing on a comparison between smaller regions allows for better control of those variables and a more accurate comparison.<\/em><\/p>\n For instance, in a\u00a0new analysis on the Huffington Post<\/a>, Monsanto\u2019s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Robb Fraley, analyzes yield trends between the Canadian province of Ontario and the country of France.\u00a0 These two regions are agronomically similar.\u00a0 The big difference?\u00a0 GMOs are common in Ontario but not used in France.\u00a0 From 1997 to 2015, corn yields increased in Ontario by 51 percent, while French yields only grew about 10.5 percent.<\/em><\/p>\n Importantly, while this increase is significant, yield improvement is only one of the many benefits GMOs offer to modern agriculture.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look more broadly at those benefits.<\/em><\/p>\n The article completely overlooked the benefits of GMOs for farmers in the developing world \u2013 an area where this new technology is truly changing lives, particularly when it comes to food security.\u00a0 According to Qaim and Kouser (2013), access to insect-resistant GMO cotton in India has increased family incomes and improved calorie consumption significantly.\u00a0 Indeed, because of access to GMOs, food insecurity among Indian cotton-producing households has fallen by 15 to 20 percent.<\/p>\n GMOs and other modern agricultural tools have also helped accelerate the adoption of practices such as conservation tillage and no-till, which helps increase carbon sequestration in soil.\u00a0 Brookes and Barfoot (2016) calculated that in 2014 alone, conservation tillage enabled by glyphosate-tolerant GMO corn and soybean removed 22.4 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.\u00a0 That\u2019s the equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the road for a year.\u00a0 That benefit alone should make headlines.<\/p>\n The article also made misleading claims regarding the use of pesticides on GMOs.\u00a0 Brookes and Barfoot also report that GMOs have reduced pesticide spraying from 1996 to 2015 by 8.2 percent.<\/p>\n In addition, despite the article\u2019s alarmist language about pesticide safety, it is important to note that all pesticides registered for use in the United States have undergone rigorous health and safety evaluations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).\u00a0 These assessments ensure that pesticides can be used safely according to their label instructions, whether they are being used on GMOs, conventional or organic crops.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy for anyone to cherry-pick numbers to make a misleading argument.\u00a0 But it\u2019s impossible to argue with the real-world benefits both large and smallholder farmers have seen around the world.<\/p>\n As a company, we are committed to delivering new tools and innovations to growers to help nourish our world in a more sustainable way.\u00a0 We believe GMOs are one important tool, among many, that will help feed our growing world.\u00a0 We invite readers of the Times piece to dig deeper than the headlines and explore the benefits of GMOs for themselves.\u00a0 A great place to start is atdiscover.monsanto.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0GMOAnswers.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NY Times article: Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops Monsanto’s Response: We were disappointed to read this weekend\u2019s piece on GMO crops\u00a0in the New York Times (\u201cDoubts About the Promised Bounty...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2031","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2032,"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2031\/revisions\/2032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.biochem.umass.edu\/vierlinglab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}